


Pins and Needles

by ivorydice



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Allusions to gory wound anyway, Blood, Gen, Hurt Noctis Lucis Caelum, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 09:29:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16194773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorydice/pseuds/ivorydice
Summary: They’re dealing with a sudden ambush at Wennath Riverhead when everything goes to hell. Noct can see it happening a mile off, but Prompto can’t. It’s a disaster just waiting to happen.





	Pins and Needles

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whumptober Day 4: "No, stop!"
> 
> Oops, it's actually now the 5th where I live but shhhhh, no one knows that.
> 
> ~~I'm so bad at titles~~

  
  
They’re dealing with a sudden ambush at Wennath Riverhead when everything goes to hell. Noct can see it happening a mile off, but Prompto can’t. It’s a disaster just waiting to happen.  
  
He’s moving into position but he’s not really _looking_ , and that’s the fatal mistake. Jumping past a sahagin Gladio just downed so he can crouch and aim his gun at another, but there’s an MT off to his right that he hasn’t yet seen, and it has the perfect opportunity to strike him in his new position.  
  
“No, stop! Prompto!” The words rush out of Noct unbidden, falling on deaf ears, drowned out by the sounds of the battle around them, but they’re useless anyway. Prompto has already moved into position, and words can’t stop these feral beasts and mindless machines from attacking.  
  
Noct is already running before he can think it through. He abandons his own foe, ignores its frustrated snarls and snapping teeth, rushing across the rocks and towards the grassy bank instead, his boots splashing in the shallow water as he goes. His heart is in his throat. His blood runs cold through his veins. He can see the MT aiming its rifle at Prompto, preparing to shoot, and there just isn’t enough time to stop it. It’ll have already fired by the time he manages to warp there and cut it down.  
  
Next best thing then. He throws his sword and follows after it, warping through the distance between them. Sounds come crashing in the closer he gets, louder and louder, like explosions in his ears, and he materialises on the other side, slamming into Prompto and knocking him down to the grass as the rifle goes off.  
  
“Ow!” Prompto cries out, all anger and surprise and faint panic as he scrambles for his gun. “What the _fuck_?”  
  
Noct presses him down to the ground, gritting his teeth together. The sahagin isn’t dead yet, which is another problem. “Shut up! Just keep shooting!” he hisses, and he looks up. The MT is aiming again.  
  
A simple tug on the armoury has a flask falling into his hand. He throws it without a second thought.  
  
Prompto had returned to shooting at the sahagin again, but he flinches and ducks his head as the flask explodes nearby. Metal flies everywhere, chunks of armour crashing into bushes and trees and water, and Noct can see Prompto’s eyes widening as he realises what had happened.  
  
“Shit, man,” he hisses. He fires another three shots, and the sahagin finally drops, lifeless. Prompto lets out a heavy breath as he looks up at Noct. “Thanks.”  
  
He wants to be annoyed. He wants to be angry. Bite out curses, reprimand him, lecture him, tell him to god damn _watch his back_ next time because he’d almost fucking _died_ and Noct would have lost him, but the relief is too overwhelming, he doesn’t know where to start. He can only let out his own shaky breath and nod.  
  
_'You’re welcome’_ seems like the perfect combination of everything he wants to get across, but the words don’t get the chance to even form on his tongue.  
  
He’d forgotten about his own sahagin, and apparently it had chosen to follow him across the battlefield.  
  
It takes only seconds for it to latch onto his leg, and Noct cries out. He sees Prompto’s eyes go wide and his hands scramble to hold onto him, but the sahagin is _strong_ , all muscle and sharp teeth and determination. It’s jaws clamp down on him even tighter and it’s _dragging_ him, backwards, _backwards_ , pulling him along the ground like he weighs nothing.  
  
“Noct!” Ignis yells out. It’s followed by crashing noises, but Noct has no idea what’s happening to him over there and he can’t see Ignis when he glances over.  
  
“Shit, hold on!” Gladio shouts, but he’s too caught up in battle to break away, practically surrounded by MTs on every side.  
  
Even Prompto is cut off from him, having to break away to hide from more bullets, disappearing behind the mass of moving metal.  
  
They’re everywhere. It’s like an entire army had been dropped off to fight them, coming from every direction, behind every tree and rock. Amongst the chaos, the sahagin keeps dragging him and his leg is on _fire_ , and it only hurts worse when he has to move to cover his head with his arms, trying to protect himself from hitting into metal legs and debris.  
  
Ignis’s words of advice come back to him - _their teeth can skin a fish alive, pulling away from a bite only makes it worse_ \- but he doesn’t see any other choice in the matter. He has to help the others, make sure they aren’t overwhelmed. He has to _save_ them.  
  
He grabs flask after flask out of the armoury, throwing them in different directions, hoping to aid the others in any way he can. Then he pulls a dagger out and tries to turn his body so he can stab the beast latched onto him.  
  
He ends up crying out instead, freezing up, the dagger slipping out of his grasp. The sahagin’s teeth scrape against his skin and it’s _agonising_ , burning hot and electric and ice cold all at once, and he feels sick with it, hates the feel of hot blood welling up and sliding down his leg, pooling inside his boot. He thinks he can feel his flesh turning to mush, like it’s being ground up, and he might actually throw up from it.  
  
The sahagin is growling, staring at him with lifeless eyes, and still it tugs on him in jerky movements. It’s dragging him back towards the river, he realises, and he flails again, trying to get rid of it before it fucking _drowns_ him on top of everything else.  
  
The sahagin jerks, and then it rolls, again and again and again. It pulls him along with it, twisting his leg, and Noct all but chokes on a scream, scrabbling blindly at the grass as the world tumbles and turns. It’s white hot, _white hot_ , his entire leg burning like a raging inferno, and he nearly does throw up this time.  
  
He’s dizzy by the time he’s back onto his stomach, the world tossing side to side, and he can barely do anything as he’s tugged on again, his every sense focused entirely on his leg and trying to make the pain stop. His nails dig into the grass beneath him and he tries to hold on, but he’s still dragged along, left only to claw up dirt.  
  
“Noct!”  
  
He looks up, but all he sees are legs rushing past him, a blur of movement. He tries to call out to them, tries to answer back, but all he can manage is a garbled moan. He clenches his fingers in the grass again as his leg his tugged on, still trapped and pulled taut.  
  
And then, just like that, it all stops. Noct tries to muffle the sob that comes out of him, but everything else has gone silent, and so its painfully loud to own ears. He manages to push himself up on his elbows enough to look over his shoulder.  
  
The sahagin is dead, multiple weapons being yanked out of its body as it falls still. Ignis with his spear, Prompto with Ignis’s daggers, Gladio with his broadsword. They’re scrambling and talking, moving around too fast for him to keep up with, and Noct quickly lays back down and buries his face in the grass to try and make his head stop swimming the way it is.  
  
“Noct. Noct!” Prompto is calling, voice getting closer. Hands touch his shoulder, clench in his jacket. “Shit, it’s okay. We’ve got you, man. It’s gonna be okay.”  
  
He sounds panicked. His hands are shaking a little where they touch Noct’s shoulders. He wants to reassure Prompto, tell him he’s had far worse than this. Except he’s not even sure about that anymore and he thinks he’s still in danger of throwing up, so he just focuses on his breathing instead.  
  
“Noct, you with us?” Gladio barks out. “C’mon, kid, say somethin’. You gotta let us know how you’re doin’.”  
  
“Look at his leg,” Prompto replies, voice shaking, “How do you _think_ he’s doing?”  
  
“Let’s just focus on getting him free and healed,” Ignis says. “The quicker we do this, the quicker he will be free of the pain.”  
  
_Getting him free_.  
  
Oh fucking _god_ , he’s still trapped within the sahagin’s jaws. The stubborn little shit is still holding onto him even when it’s dead.  
  
Noct swallows against the nausea and turns his head to the side. “Still trapped?” he croaks out. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut. He doesn’t think he can handle whatever emotion might be on their faces right now.  
  
Prompto squeezes his shoulders. “Yeah, bud,” he says. It sounds like it pains him to admit it. “But we’re gonna get you out, okay? Then you’ll be healed up and back to normal in no time. Like it never even happened.”  
  
“Trust us,” Gladio grunts. “We’ve got you.”  
  
They may think they’re being comforting, but it’s only making it worse. His nervousness just keeps building and building, a cold shiver up and down his spine, leaving him shaking like he’s in minus degree weather, and suddenly he can’t stand not seeing them.  
  
“Turn—” Noct swallows past the lump in his throat, shuddering, “Turn over.”  
  
A pause. “Noct, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Gladio says.  
  
Noct fights back a whine. “ _Please_.”  
  
Ignis seems to understand. “We’ll help you turn over,” he says, “Go easy. Be careful with your leg, we don’t want to make the damage any worse.”  
  
It’s a nightmare, and halfway through he wishes he hadn’t asked. He tries to keep his leg as still as possible while they help him roll over onto his back, but he can feel the teeth stuck in his flesh grind against him anyway, and the pain nearly makes him black out and collapse back onto the grass.  
  
He thinks he does, once he’s on his back. Prompto is to his side one moment, and then his face is hovering above him the next, one hand clutching at his shoulder, the other pressed against the side of Noct’s head. He’s pale and his eyes are wide and worried, but it’s a relief to see his face. And, if he moves his eyes down, he can see Gladio and Ignis near his legs, hovering over him.  
  
Gladio looks over at him with concerned eyes. “Okay. You ready, Noct?”  
  
Noct swallows thickly. He’s not ready at all, anticipating the pain that’s to come and dreading it, but there’s simply no other way. So he takes a deep breath and nods. “Go for it,” he forces out. His voice is shaky, but he can see the flash of pride in Gladio’s eyes. It gives him a little strength.  
  
“Alright then,” Ignis mutters.  
  
“Keep that leg still and have a potion ready,” Gladio mutters back. “We’ll do this quickly.”  
  
Noct moves his arm, fumbling around near his shoulder until he comes into contact with Prompto’s hand. Prompto’s fingers instantly wrap around his, tight and sweaty and trembling a little.  
  
“I’m so sorry,” Prompto mutters. His other hand is still on the side of Noct’s head, fingers brushing through his hair. “This is all my fault. If I’d just been paying attention—”  
  
Noct squeezes his fingers. “Prompto,” he grits out as he feels Gladio and Ignis preparing to act, “Shut up. Not your fault.”  
  
Prompto gives him such a remorseful look, but Noct doesn’t get the chance to say anything else. He sees Gladio moving, large hands wrapped around the jaws of the sahagin. Ignis holds onto Noct’s leg, and already that hurts like a bitch. It aggravates his injuries and Noct cries out from it, but it’s nothing compared to when Gladio pries the sahagin’s jaws apart. He does it quickly and mercilessly, and the teeth rip out of Noct’s flesh like daggers tearing him open.  
  
He can hear himself crying out, practically screaming, but he can’t stop it. It’s loud and it rips out of him, leaving his throat feeling raw, drowning out whatever Prompto is frantically saying.  
  
He thinks he blacks out again.  
  
Voices filter in. Loud, desperate. They hurt his head and make him wince. He can feel something holding his arm up, hands wrapping around his. “—on, Noct, hurry,” someone says. Deep and gruff.  
  
“Noct,” someone else says, so close to his ear that, for a moment, he wonders if the voice is actually in his head. “Come on, bud, wake up. You can do it. You’ve _got_ to.”  
  
He opens his eyes to three faces hovering over him. Noct lets out a breath. He’s never seen them look so _scared_ before, and their fear isn’t going away the longer he stares up at them.  
  
His leg feels cold. Heavy. Almost numb. He doubts he could move it even if he had the energy to try.  
  
“Noct,” Gladio barks out. There’s a large hand on his face suddenly, slapping his cheek lightly, and Noct flinches. Gladio’s eyes are worried as he stares up at him. “Come on, Noct, _focus_. Break the potion.”  
  
“You’re bleeding too much, Noct,” Ignis says. “You have to heal yourself _now_.”  
  
There’s a potion in his hand. The one Prompto isn’t holding onto with a vice-like grip. Noct stares at the bottle, feeling stupid and slow, like his head and mouth have been stuffed with cotton, but he can barely even twitch his fingers around the glass when he tries. His body feels heavy, a deadweight, drifting further away from him with every second.  
  
He remembers. They don’t have any phoenix downs with them, nothing that could help him if he drifts _too_ far away. He almost wants to laugh from it. An animal bite to the leg seems like such a _pathetic_ way to die, not at all kingly or how he had expected to go.  
  
“Noct!”  
  
Noct can only manage a groan in reply. He clenches his hand again, squeezes his fingers as hard as he can manage. There’s still too much for them to do and he’s _not_ going to die like this.  
  
But his body is still so unresponsive and the glass feels as hard as steel in his grip. He stares at it, willing it to break, so frustrated he could almost sob, until finally, _finally_ , the glass cracks.  
  
That’s all it takes. The glass crumbles in his grip seconds later, shards slipping through his fingers like sand, and the potion seeps into him, mixing with his magic and flowing through the rest of his body. He can _see_ the relief work its way through the others, their shoulders dropping and their breaths coming out on soft sighs. It makes him smile a little.  
  
Feeling works its way back into his leg. The pain is still there, but it’s quiet now, faded, and he knows soon it’ll be gone entirely. His skin tingles as it’s mended together. It feels strange, nothing like the usual healing process whenever he has cuts and bruises that need tending to, and he’s suddenly _overwhelmingly_ glad that he never actually looked at the injury the sahagin gave him. Especially with the amount of blood on Ignis’s and Gladio’s hands, and the blood he can still feel down his leg and in his boot.  
  
“God,” Gladio mutters. He sits back on the grass and hangs his head. “Think that shaved a few years off my life. Thanks for that.”  
  
“Yeah, that—” Prompto’s voice catches in his throat, and he swallows audibly. “That was scary, dude. Let’s not do that ever again, okay?”  
  
Noct looks up at him and nods slowly. He still feels off, shaken almost, and although he doesn’t quite trust his voice to work properly just yet, he manages to whisper out, “Thanks. For saving my ass.”  
  
Prompto snorts. “Well, we considered the alternative, but eh, didn’t sound too great.”  
  
“Yeah, it’d get pretty boring without ya,” Gladio smirks down at him.  
  
“Quite,” Ignis says quietly.  
  
Noct rolls his eyes and lets his head fall back against the grass. The sky is clear above them, not a cloud in sight. Nor anything else for that matter - like, say, a god damn airship - but he can’t help the worry gnawing at him anyway. They’ll have to get moving soon, otherwise they’ll be right back in the middle of another ambush when the Empire decides to send more soldiers after them, and he’s not quite ready to just fight yet.  
  
Ignis seems to know what he’s thinking, his voice gentle and reassuring as he moves to inspect Noct’s leg. “Take all the time you need,” he says. “We won’t let anything happen.”  
  
“Yeah,” Gladio says. “We’re not letting anything get the drop on us like that again. We’ve got your back.”  
  
Prompto is smiling down at him and nodding, and Noct sighs.  
  
Well, maybe a few more minutes won’t hurt.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3 You can find me [here](http://ivorydice.tumblr.com/) at tumblr.


End file.
